A childhood incident has left brothers Stephen and Brian McCaffret (Kurt Russell and William Baldwin) mentally scarred, but that doesn't stop them following in their father's footsteps by becoming firefighters. Brian, the more wary of the two, teams up with dogged arson investigator Donald Rimgale (Robert De Niro) after a series of blazes, and finds himself at loggerheads with the more gung-ho Stephen when he is led to suspect someone in his former unit.